CalWomenTech Project: Increasing Recruitment & Retention of Female College Students in Technology Courses

This paper written in the third year of a five year project for presentation at the 2009 WEPAN Conference includes promising early CalWomenTech Project results, sample strategies, and project resources for educators. CalWomenTech Project community colleges that implemented project recruitment strategies within the recommended timeline had an increase in enrollment of women in their targeted technology programs of 10 to 15 percentage points in just over a year. Colleges that implemented the retention strategies saw increases in both female and male retention, and one college saw their retention of women go from 81% to 100% in a little over a year.